


St. Patrick's Day

by roguefaerie (samidha)



Category: American Gods - Neil Gaiman
Genre: Book 'verse, Comment Fic, Community: fic_promptly, For the Book Nerds, Gen, Not Show Sweeney, St. Patrick's Day
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-08
Updated: 2018-03-08
Packaged: 2019-03-28 18:17:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 242
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13909542
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/samidha/pseuds/roguefaerie
Summary: Belief is in Sweeney's bones. But so is history.





	St. Patrick's Day

**Author's Note:**

> Tried not to be heavy handed, so it's short, and might have a part 2 with more explainers...but...also maybe not.

It's the seventeenth, and Mad Sweeney feels the marrow of what remains of his bones strengthening.

But he isn't wearing green, not today.

He doesn't need to be an object of his own following. He doesn't need green beer today (oh, he'll likely drink, because he's Mad Sweeney, or he'll go to a bar, let someone pour him a drink, and he'll twirl it in its glass. He's quite Mad enough already without.

He does not need to participate in objectification.

He's asked so many times, whenever he allows himself to be visible, why he isn't wearing green.

"The potatoes were rotted and they turned green," he says to one woman who asks why he is in earth tones. He knows she will hear him. "And maybe not for the reason you thought," he calls after her. She looks uncomfortable, but she did nod at him. See? He appears mad enough without anything at all.

There's more to the story, much more, so much more, the story of people's lives, disrupted or ended, the story of the Irish and the English.

He remembers it. A distant, aching part of it remembers the time of it, in his bones, in his essence. But it doesn't effect his day to day, and for now he'll sit in a bar and take the energy of belief where he can.

He'll let those who don't know wear the green. It isn't needed for those who do.


End file.
